How does Maven resolve plugin versions?

Question

I\'m reading the docs and still confused as to how Maven is deciding which versions of plugins to download.

For example, consider this simple scenario:

1. an

Answer 1

Maven defines 3 lifecycles in META-INF/plexus/components.xml:

1. Default Lifecycle

Default lifecycle are defined without any associated plugin. Plugin bindings for these lifecycles are defined separately for every packaging in META-INF/plexus/default-bindings.xml

e.g. Plugin bindings for jar packaging

  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-resources-plugin:2.6:resources
  
  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:2.5.1:compile
  
  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-resources-plugin:2.6:testResources
  
  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:2.5.1:testCompile
  
  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.12.4:test
  
  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-jar-plugin:2.4:jar
  
  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-install-plugin:2.4:install
  
  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-deploy-plugin:2.7:deploy
  

2. Clean Lifecycle clean lifecycle is defined directly with its plugin bindings.

  pre-clean
  clean
  post-clean


  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-clean-plugin:2.5:clean
  

3. Site Lifecycle Site lifecycle is defined directly with its plugin bindings.

  pre-site
  site
  post-site
  site-deploy


  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-site-plugin:3.3:site
  
  
    org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-site-plugin:3.3:deploy
  

If you want to override these default plugin version you can do it from command prompt as follows

mvn org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-clean-plugin:2.0:clean

instead of

mvn clean:clean